In the Darkest Place
by Astralis
Summary: She knew as well as he did that there could be no forgetting, that some things never left you but only lay close below the surface, waiting to tear into your life again at every opportunity. A case brings up bad memories for Nick and Sara. NS.


IN THE DARKEST PLACE  
  
DISCLAIMER: The usual. They're not mine.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I originally wrote this as a second chapter to 'A World of their Own', but the tone of the two stories was so different and there was no logical link between the two chapters that I decided just to make it a separate story.  
  
All reviews, constructive criticism etc greatly appreciated!  
  
***  
  
It didn't often rain in Vegas, but when it did, to Nick Stokes it was always either a hindrance or a blessing, never something in between.  
  
Tonight it was a blessing. The rain pounding the roof of the house they were processing, streaming down the outside of the windows, came from clouds that blanketed the stars and matched his mood. There always seemed to him to be something incongruous in being depressed while surrounded by the stark desert sunshine or clear bright stars. He knew why film-makers often provided a background of gloomy skies or thunderstorms for their melancholy scenes.  
  
Nick hated working the deaths of children. When those children had been abused for months leading up to their deaths, he loathed working the cases, yet he would not give them up or pass them on. He'd had his own private hell as a child, one brief moment which had shadowed his life ever since. These children had never escaped the hell. Living with the shadow of abuse was hard enough; Nick felt he owed it to these children to get justice, to get one more evil, depraved being locked up behind bars. It wouldn't save the children who lay dead in a small back room, but maybe it would save some others. Maybe it would save him.  
  
Nick worked methodically, printing the front door inside and out. The mother and stepfather claimed they had come home and found the children dead; that they knew nothing of the bruises; that the scars were the results of routine childhood accidents. The mother was outside, talking to Brass under a huge umbrella, playing the bereaved parent. Maybe she was. It wasn't his job to decide whether she was faking her grief, it was his job to find out who had killed those two children.  
  
He needed to prove conclusively that the mother, Margaret Wilson, or her husband, Kevin, had killed these children. He knew they had them on child endangerment if nothing else: leaving two underage children at home alone, at night, with, so they claimed, an unlocked front door. Their story was that someone - Margaret claimed her first husband, the children's father - had waited until they had left for a night at a casino with friends, then entered the house and beaten those children to death.  
  
It didn't stack up. Not to the paramedics or the first officers on the scene; not to Brass, to Nick or Catherine or Sara. Some of the bruises were fresh, some were fading. They were all expecting the autopsies to prove prior physical and probably sexual abuse. The Wilsons were readily admitting to the endangerment, but Nick knew it was much worse than that.  
  
He finished the door and stood aside to let the coroner and two gurneys through, Catherine following close behind. One small body on each gurney: Amber, aged seven, and Jamie, aged five. "I'm going to go with the coroner," Catherine told him. "You and Sara finish up here, OK?" Her eyes were concerned. "You all right?"   
  
"Yeah," Nick said. "You?"  
  
"Fine," Catherine shrugged. They each knew the other was lying. Neither pushed the point and Catherine walked off after the gurneys.   
  
Whe she was gone, Nick went into the back bedroom where the bodies had been found. Sara was kneeling on the floor, taking sample after sample of the blood on the floor and walls, in the chance that some of it belonged to the killer. She glanced up at him, concern and compassion flooding her eyes. She was looking at him the same way she'd been looking at him ever since the call had come in back at CSI. The same way Catherine had been looking at him. They had been watching him closely, looking to see if he was coping, looking for signs of emotions which might have betrayed him or compromised the scene. Catherine believed she was the only one who knew his secret, and as such she seemed to have assigned herself to be his personal watchdog since they'd arrived at the scene. Sara hovered in the background, circumspectly, trying not to make it obvious that she saw something wrong with Nick. "Are you - " she began.  
  
Nick cut her off. "I'm coping."  
  
Sara nodded, trying to smile. "Cath went with the bodies."  
  
"Yeah. I know." They looked at each other, eyes meeting. Nick wanted nothing more than to prove the complicity of the mother and stepfather in the deaths of the children, then to go home and bury himself in Sara's arms. He'd have liked to add 'drink himself to oblivion' to the list, but he had a feeling Sara wouldn't let him do that.   
  
"Nick - "   
  
"I know," he said, again. He knew what she wanted to say, wanted to do, but couldn't. "I know," he repeated, softly, still holding her gaze. "I guess I'll - tape lift in here. See what I can find." He joined her on the floor and they worked in companiable silence, giving each strength through their mere presence as the rain continued outside.  
  
***  
  
An hour after their shift should have ended, it seemed as though everything that could be a possible clue in the house had been bagged, printed, or undergone whatever procedure was necessary, and Nick and Sara, the back of the Tahoe loaded with a mountain of evidence, were on their way back to the lab. "I'll run the prints on the door. Eliminate the mother, stepfather, the two kids. See what's left." Nick felt the need to say something practical before Sara tried talking about feelings. He couldn't cope with that now. When they were home, yes, they'd talk. He'd talk out the stream of emotions bubbling up in him, but until then he was keeping the lid firmly on.  
  
"I don't buy the parents' story for a second. They'd been abusing those kids."  
  
"We'll know more when we get back to the lab, but, yeah. I'm not expecting to see the ex-husband's prints on that door, or anyone else's. They killed those kids, Sara." No, practical matters didn't help. Even practical matters stirred up the emotion. It was always hard, dead children. It was something that should never happen. Especially not abuse, short or long term. *Especially* not murder.  
  
He couldn't hide from Sara. He'd gotten so used to sharing everything with her at home that it was near impossible to suddenly shut off that connection at work. There were the occasional times when one of them wanted to snarl at the other in the lab in continuance of a fight begun at home, times when one or both was having a rough shift and the distress made itself plain to the other, but protocol and an unnatural self discipline made them place extra distance, emotional and physical, between the two of them until they could go home and fall into each other's embrace. It was hard, needing someone who was right under your nose, yet knowing you couldn't have them for several more hours.  
  
They lived a double life. A lie. Nick wondered how long they could keep it up for. And what would happen when they slipped up.  
  
***  
  
Catherine was waiting for them in the break room. "Definite long term abuse," she began without preamble. "Facial fractures and broken ribs and that's just the old stuff. Both children have been sexually abused," she said briskly, obviously trying to get it over with. "Jamie has a fractured skull, but cause of death was hemorraghing from massive internal injuries - punctured lung, ruptured spleen and liver, the list goes on. Amber was strangled, but she has three broken ribs and a broken jaw as a result of whatever happened in that house last night. Greg's running the hairs I found on their clothes looking for a DNA match - if there's a paternal match we've got something on the biological father. Hairs from the mother or stepfather could just be coincidental cross-contamination."  
  
Nick sat down, heavily, as Sara poured out two cups of coffee and brought it over. "Jacqui's doing her thing with the prints from the front door. I've given Greg about sixty million blood samples from that room and hairs and fibres we found."  
  
"Anything exciting turn up?" Catherine asked.  
  
"Nothing obvious. We'll have to wait until our results are back. What about the father?"  
  
"Brass has gone to bring him in, but really, I don't think he did it."  
  
Sara shook her head. "There was too much long term abuse. Mother's been with the second guy what, four years? It can't be abuse inflicted by the father because he wasn't in the home and according to the mother the kids rarely saw him."  
  
"Time of death?" Nick asked.  
  
"Between ten and eleven last night. Jamie probably died first, but we don't know for sure."  
  
"Someone knows," said Nick, darkly, staring into his coffee, knowing the two women were giving him concerned looks again.  
  
A uniformed officer had appeared in the doorway. "Brass has brought your man in."  
  
"Right," said Catherine, standing up. "I'm in. You two observe."  
  
Nick was too tired to argue.  
  
***  
  
"Catherine, I'm fine," Nick said wearily. "Honestly."  
  
"Are you sure?" She was talking quietly, obviously trying not to let Sara, who she thought knew nothing about this aspect of Nick's past, hear. "It's tough for me as a mother. I can't imagine how you must be feeling."  
  
"Catherine, I'm fine." Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Sara rummaging through her locker, no doubt stalling for time.   
  
"If you do want to talk - "  
  
"I just want to go home and sleep," Nick said, a little too abruptly. He sighed. "I'm sorry. I know you're trying to help. It's just - "   
  
Sara slammed her locker door shut and came over. "I'll see you guys tonight," she said. "We'll get the stepfather, Nick." Her voice was confident. "The father's alibi's rock tight and we all know who'd been abusing those kids. We'll get him," she repeated, waved to Catherine, and left. Nick knew that she had decided Catherine was going to let him go home, rather than drag him off to talk, and that she would be waiting for him at home.  
  
"If you're sure," said Catherine, uncertainly, having watched Sara depart. "Look, call me if you need anything, all right?"  
  
"I just need sleep. I'll be back tonight ready to close this case." He shut his own locker and pulled on his coat. "Thanks anyway. I'll see you tonight."  
  
She nodded and Nick hurried out of the locker room before she could change her mind. He knew perfectly well that mothering people was Catherine's way of showing she cared about them, but it got on his nerves. It was Sara's help he needed, but Sara wasn't supposed to know his secret. Then again, Sara wasn't supposed to be living with him either. Catherine tried not to let Sara know that she knew that there was something up with Nick, and Sara tried not to let Catherine know that she knew that Catherine knew... Nick shook his head. It was probably a good thing Catherine had been so preoccupied with him and with the case tonight, because Sara was a terrible actress. Catherine had been mothering him even before they arrived on the scene and Nick had noticed the jealousy in Sara's eyes. Sara was convinced it was her job to look after Nick - and she did have more right than anyone else. She *was* his girlfriend, she just wasn't supposed to be during work hours.   
  
Nick sighed again and started his Tahoe. Life was hard enough working the graveyard shift as a crime scene investigator without juggling a secret affair with a colleague. Unfortunately, he didn't see any other option.  
  
***  
  
Sure enough, Sara was waiting on the sofa when Nick walked in, two cold beers on the coffee table in front of her. "Hey," she said softly as Nick kicked off his shoes and sat down beside her.  
  
"Hey, Princess." Nick picked up one of the bottles and took a swig out of it, then replaced it on the table and put his head on Sara's shoulder. He didn't feel like drinking anymore. He just wanted to be here with Sara in their own little world and forget about those two children, forget about the memories the case had dredged up.   
  
There was no forgetting, but he wanted to pretend that there was.  
  
Sara wrapped her arms around him, holding him as he had held her so many times. She understood. She knew as well as he did that there could be no forgetting, that some things never left you but only lay close below the surface, waiting to tear into your life again at every opportunity. "I've been waiting to do this all night," she whispered in his ear.  
  
"I've been needing this all night." Nick brushed away the traiterous tears, the tears which came too easily to him.   
  
"Cry, if you want." Sara rested her cheek against his head.  
  
Nick closed his eyes. He didn't know what he wanted, except for this nightmare to end. They would charge someone, be it the stepfather or someone else, for the deaths of Amber and Jamie Wilson, and then the case would be closed, and Nick would be left to deal with the fresh scars. How could one incident when he was nine years old affect him like this? "Can we just talk?" he whispered, hearing in his own voice the terrified child he had been.  
  
"We can do that." Sara squeezed him tighter. "Do you want to go to bed?"  
  
Nick considered this, and nodded. He wanted to fall asleep in Sara's arms, and he was quite capable of doing that on the sofa, but bed was probably the better option.  
  
"Hungry?"  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"Me neither." Sara kissed the top of his head, removed her arms from around his body, and stood up. Nick instantly felt cold, missing the contact. She took his hand and led him to their bedroom, where the sun that was beginning to filter through the dispersing clouds flooded in through the window. Nick stared at it, feeling almost angry, until Sara shut the curtains, blocking the sunlight and leaving them standing in near darkness. "Hey," she chided him, gently. "Pajamas."  
  
Nick began to change almost robotically, not even watching Sara as he usually did. It wasn't her beauty he wanted this morning, it was the warmth of her body and the empathy which she had in bucketloads. Beautiful Sara. Her parents had named her well. Sara meant 'Princess', Nick's favorite nickname for her. She was a princess to him. An ice princess, sometimes. She had been hurt too, had had her own world shattered and her innocence ripped away from her by one cruel person. She understood him as he understood her, as no one else could do.   
  
They climbed under the covers and met in the middle of the bed, arms wrapping around each other. Nick buried his head between Sara's neck and shoulder, feeling the heat of her bare skin. "Are *you* all right?" he asked, raising his head and looking at her, feeling guilty that he hadn't asked, that he'd been so wrapped up in himself. Cases like that got to everyone. And Sara knew the pain of abuse first hand.  
  
"Nick..." Brown eyes met, and held. "Of course I'm not. But... you need me. And that helps. You've been there for me so many times. Let me be there for you now. Please?" Her smile was weak, but sincere. Sara was not an actress. She couldn't keep her emotions out of her eyes.  
  
"I love you so much." Nick felt he had to tell her that.   
  
"I know. I love you too." Sara smiled again. "Lie down properly. We'll talk. It helps."  
  
They lay in silence, listening to and feeling each other breathe, each trying to form a sentence that would explain the jumble of emotions they were experiencing.  
  
"It doesn't go away, does it?" Sara whispered, finally, knowing Nick was still awake.  
  
"No." Nick paused, kissed her neck. "I can't help thinking that those two children - they're dead. It's over for them. They won't have the nightmares anymore. And then I feel so *guilty* for thinking like that, for thinking it's a good thing they're dead. It's *not* a good thing."  
  
"No, they won't have the nightmares. But they won't have the good parts of life either. I understand what you're saying. I've thought that sometimes, too. That death can be an escape."  
  
"What happened to them was worse than what happened to me. Me it was only once, but these kids were abused over and over again. I don't know how I could have coped if that had happened to me."  
  
"You'd have coped. People do."  
  
"Not always. How many times have we seen it - lives ripped apart? Families screwed up for years, passing the pain on to their children?" Nick felt the tears come to his eyes again. He screwed his face up, knowing Sara wouldn't be able to see him but still trying to hide the tears. He felt a shudder pass through his body.  
  
"People come up with so many trite comments." Nick was startled at the bitterness in Sara's voice. "They say, yeah, what happened to you is a bad thing, but it made you the person you are today. Whatever doesn't kill you will only make you stronger." The bitterness had changed to sarcasm, and Nick, blinking back tears, raised his head again to look at her. She was staring at the ceiling, tears brimming in her own eyes. She turned to face Nick and smiled weakly for a split second. "I wish it had never happened to me. Or to you. Or to those children, or to anyone else. What happened to me helped make me into the person I am today, sure, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. I don't always like the person I am today." Nick felt Sara's body tense as a tear broke through the barriers and trickled down her cheek. She forced another smile. "I'm supposed to be cheering you up. I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be." Nick wiped the tear from her cheek. "I know exactly what you mean. People look at you and they see this tough, beautiful, independent woman." He wiped another tear away. Focusing on Sara helped ease the pain inside. Helping someone else in pain always did that for him, acted like a kind of anaesthesia.   
  
"Or they look at you and see a competent, smart, gorgeous CSI."  
  
"Yes. But they don't know what goes on behind those walls we put up. They don't know what it's like to really have to live with what happened to us."  
  
"They don't *know* anything happened. They just assume we're like what we seem on the outside. They don't know that I have nightmares sometimes, or that we both have to live with one incident in our pasts every day. And then I hear people say things like, 'every cloud has a silver lining'. Yeah right. Nothing good has ever come out of what happened to me." Sara was crying openly now.  
  
"I was lucky, in a way," Nick whispered. "I had Nigel Crane. Everyone knows about that. I'm allowed to have weak moments that everyone attributes to him. You haven't got anything like that. No excuses."  
  
"You've still got the pain though. It doesn't go away. It doesn't stop."  
  
Nick pulled Sara closer, burying his face in her hair.  
  
"I just want it to go away. I don't want to have to remember this for the rest of my life," she sobbed.  
  
Nick felt himself begin to cry too. "You've got me. You've always got me."  
  
"I just want to be normal. I want to be the old Sara. But she's gone. She's dead."  
  
"I wish I could look back on my childhood and not remember what happened. Look back and see a fun loving kid with a happy life. But when I think of my childhood it's the first thing I think of."  
  
Their words faded away as the tears took over. Sometimes tears were a clearer expression of reality and emotion that words that didn't always convey what was meant. People said tears were cathartic. Nick wasn't sure about that. He had cried so many times, but the pain never went away. It dulled sometimes but it was always present. He couldn't cry the hurt away, talk it away, or drink it away. Nor could Sara.   
  
He felt more anger towards the man who had hurt her than the woman who had hurt him. Maybe because it was easier to confront something that was one step removed, to separate 'Sara' and her attack in his mind. He couldn't think of himself without thinking of what had happened, but he could think of Sara and think beauty or intelligence or love without having her past intrude. Only when he thought of her emotional attachment towards certain victims, the long time it had taken her to trust him, the nightmares that sometimes woke them both from sleep, did he consciously think about what had happened to her. He could compartmentalise while loving her and abhorring what had happened.  
  
Sara didn't see herself as a victim ninety percent of the time. Nor did he. They could go for weeks without that other ten percent of the time intruding, shattering what they had worked so hard to build in their times of peace.  
  
She was his princess. The only person who really knew him, the only person who could really love him. She understood.  
  
***  
  
The only good thing Nick had to say about the Wilson case was that it was cut and dried. Obvious. They had all known who had killed those children, and the neatly sorted evidence that was waiting for them on arrival at the lab proved it.  
  
Amber had her stepfather's DNA under her fingernails. The friends the Wilsons had claimed to have been with had no knowledge of their supposed trip to the casino. There was no evidence to suggest that the children's biological father or anyone else had been in the house.  
  
Nick and Sara watched behind the window to the interrogation room, keeping a careful distance apart and a careful cap on any residual emotion, as Brass and Catherine interrogated Margaret Wilson, laying out the evidence against her husband. It wasn't long before she cracked, and admitted that he had been abusing both the children and her. "I was so scared of him," she sobbed. "I couldn't leave. He'd have come after us. He swore that if I didn't do what he wanted he'd kill the children. And I did. Everything he wanted. I was trying to keep them safe. I was trying to keep my babies safe and he killed them."  
  
"Why didn't you tell us this earlier, Mrs Wilson?" Catherine's voice was gentle.  
  
"Because - I knew he'd done it - I heard them scream - but he would never admit it. He said even if I told the police it was him, he'd deny it, and they'd believe him. He's very persuasive." Margaret Wilson shook her head and wiped her eyes, trying to hold back sobs which wouldn't stop coming. "I didn't want to tell you, in case you didn't arrest him. He'd kill me then."  
  
Nick glanced at Sara, who was white. "What do you think?" he asked.  
  
"She was so scared. You can see that. I think she tried to protect them in the only way she knew how. You and I know she could've gotten out and gone to a safe house and he would never have found them again. But we hear the same story, over and over. Women just can't think straight in that sort of situation." Sara swallowed. They watched in silence as Brass arrested Margaret Wilson for complicity in her children's death, and the pain they had suffered during their lives. The woman seemed glad as he snapped the handcuffs around her wrists.  
  
"It's what I deserve," was the only thing she said as Brass escorted her from the room, promising that Kevin Wilson would be arrested for the abuse and murder of Amber and Jamie. The door swung shut and they disappeared from view. Both Nick and Sara winced involuntarily as Catherine sighed and dropped her head onto the table with a thud.  
  
They knew how she felt. 


End file.
